The garden has shed its civility.

Ignored and abandoned by humans,
it loses all signs of tending, control,
an anarchic jungle of green.

Cosmos grows to crazy height,
feathered skyscraper stalks, five, six feet,
bowed and top-heavy with blooms..

Japanese heather, purple and bushy,
dreadlocks longer than they deserve to be,
encroach on the mosquito hatchery,
a birdbath of stagnant water.

The tomatoes are strangling the peppers.

White mums stand in clumps, aloof,
no crisis, no complex,
until the slugs begin to gnaw their leaves.

Weeds, brazenly seeding,
attain equal status again,
and bully legitimate flowers
for real estate.

The crepe myrtle and lilac
cower in the corner by the fence,
watching the fracas, secretly hoping for spring,

when they will wake again,
and most of these perpetrators
will already be dead.

10/09/2001

Posted on 10/09/2001
Copyright © 2026 Bruce W Niedt